The omission of biopics from the field of adaptation studies is almost certainly due to the lowly reputation of the form. Scorned by historians and film theorists, biopics are regarded by the former as the most ‘unfaithful’ and the latter as the most conservative of all film genres. Above all, the biopic is a genre that ‘belongs’ to the actor. The paper considers the evolution of biopics as star vehicles in the mid 1930s, focusing on ‘queen biopics’.